


Look On My Works

by yarrie



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: AO3 has wonderful formatting options YES, M/M, Ozymandias - Freeform, Poetry analysis for the layman who knows nothing aka Shizuo, plus Frankenstein just cuz, x-posted to FF.net
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-02-28 00:15:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2711954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yarrie/pseuds/yarrie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>OR The Dangers of Having a (Maybe) Boyfriend Who is Smarter Than You. In which Izaya appreciates Western literature, Shizuo is confused as shit, and Shinra doesn't know anything either. Semi-established semi-Shizaya. Two-shot.</p>
<p>------</p>
<p>"If it's that good, read it to me."</p>
<p>"You wouldn't understand it," Izaya told him dismissively.</p>
<p>He glared at the stupid flea. "Then explain it."</p>
<p>The slender body occupying half of his bed straightened out. "Hmm. A challenge, to be sure." Before Shizuo could get angry at the implied insult, Izaya nodded shortly. "Okay. Let's see...we could begin with Ozymandias."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Look on my works...

**Author's Note:**

> BECAUSE OZYMANDIAS AND IZAYA AND YES.
> 
> The second half is brewing. Stay tuned. No doubt I will be writing it to procrastinate.

When Shizuo finally got back from work a little after 2AM after his Friday night shift, he had been completely ready to crawl into his bed and sleep til the weekend was over. Maybe even longer. Hell, maybe even forever. The thought was actually pretty tempting: no more bullshit excuses from assholes who obviously spent their last dime on alcohol, no more dumbass doctor friends trying to play matchmaker, no more fur-coat bastards ruining his life...

Unfortunately, as usual, the fucking flea had other plans for him. As he demonstrated quite plainly by jumping on Shizuo's bed and poking his grumpy blonde counterpart with the blunt edge of his flickblade.

In response, Shizuo...grunted. Once. Then twice, when Izaya refused to stop. The fact that he hadn't half-strangled the flea for pulling a knife on him (half being the key word, now that the two of them had come to a sort of  _understanding,_  courtesy of their mutual doctor friend) was proof of how tired he was. "Go. Away. Now."

"Shizu-chan." Izaya shuffled around and pouted so hard that Shizuo could practically feel it being transmitted through the air. "I wanna do something."

"Then go do somethin' and leave me'lone," he muffled through the pillow.

"Let me rephrase," the flea replied, in the most annoying pompous tone ever. "I wanna do something and I can't do it without you, so you're going to have to get  _up._ I'd like to get to it sometime in the next century."

He groaned. "Then you can wait til next century, asshole."

Izaya sighed. "Of course. The protozoan doesn't understand sarcasm. How could I forget, silly me." He prodded Shizuo even harder with the switchblade, actually poking holes in the pajamas. "Shizu-chan. Shizu-chan.  _Shizu-chan_. Shizu-chan. Shizu-chan, _I'm pregnant!"_

His eyes flew open and he jerked upwards into a half-sitting position. "THE FUCK?!"

Izaya nodded serenely. "Gotta thank Shinra next time. That actually worked." Then, cheerfully, he pulled out an insanely colorful box wrapped up in the shiniest paper Shizuo had ever seen. "Look, Shizu-chan," he cooed.

He glared. "You're not pregnant," he said flatly, staring at Izaya's flat, skinny belly.

The flea rolled his eyes. "Superb deduction, my dear protozoan. Now, can we get to the present? Please? Pretty please?" He batted his eyelashes dramatically. It actually worked, sort of, because the flea  _did_  have uncomfortably pretty eyelashes.

He eyed the gift warily. "That for me?" he asked finally.

"No, silly," Izaya said wryly. "It's for me. That's why I'm here, letting you see it." He pushed the box forward slightly.

If possible, he was even more suspicious now. "...what is it?"

"No idea," he chirped with a stupid flea grin on his face.

Shizuo growled. "Then I'm not openin' it."

"Shizu-chan, what makes you think I'd let you open  _my_  present?" Izaya's grin widened, "I wasn't being sarcastic, you know. It really  _is_  for me."

He glanced at the window behind Izaya. If he weren't so fucking tired...he flexed his hand slowly.

Izaya gasped dramatically. "Don't even think about it, Shizu-chan. I didn't come all the way here to be thrown out of the window! I think I still have some glass in my hair from last time!" He pinched one of the black strands and squinted at it pointedly. "Shizu-chan is too rough!"

Shizuo snorted. "Then why're you still here?"

"Because obviously I  _like_  it rough," Izaya said, looking at Shizuo like he was stupid - which was probably an honest interpretation of Izaya's feelings about Shizuo, actually.

Shizuo gritted his teeth and slammed a hand on the top of Izaya's head, shoving him face down into the sheets.

Red eyes, half-hidden by the angle of his face to the bed, glanced up from under Shizuo's palm. The present was safely tucked under his arm. His snickers were barely muffled by the bedsheets.

"Shut the fuck up, flea," he said, when it became obvious that Izaya wasn't going to stop laughing.

In response, Izaya somehow slipped under his hand and bounced back on the mattress. After the bed stopped shaking, he folded his legs under him and sat seiza-style on the corner. "Shizu-chan isn't too bad at catching people," he announced. "But he needs to work on making sure they stay caught."

"How 'bout I just kill you next time?" Shizuo growled, itching for a cigarette.

"No. Bad Shizu-chan." Izaya squeezed his lips together until it looked like he was smiling but he really wasn't. "Don't make me punish you."

The idea of Izaya punishing him was so absurd he just snorted and shook his head.

Izaya kicked his feet like a child having a tantrum - not a bad analogy, all things considered. "Shizu-chan!" he complained in an oddly sing-songy voice, "I'm serious! Don't make me punish you!"

"Like you could," Shizuo said. "I'd kill you first."

"Like you could," Izumi threw back at him, smiling slowly. He had stopped kicking about.

Shizuo clamped his mouth shut and shrugged awkwardly because - fuck, it was  _true_ , and that didn't bother him as much as it should have.

"Now, Shizu-chan," Izaya dragged the present back onto his lap with two of his long, slender fingers, "Let's get back to my present. That's why I came to you, after all!"

"The hell do you want me for? It's  _your_  present," he grunted, eyeing the box warily.

"Nothing, really, but I wanted to show you because it's so pretty. I mean, look at the ribbon, isn't it nicely wrapped? I haven't gotten any secret admirer gifts in a looo-ong time."

He was already growling halfway through Izaya's first sentence. It was pure instinct. Izaya was like a constant stream of bullshit, and it usually saved Shizuo a lot of time if he just assumed that Izaya was about to insult him when he had  _that_  look in his eyes. By the end, he was growling for a different reason altogether, snapping, " _What_  secret admirers?"

"Oh," Izaya waved him off, "Just people who think I'm pretty. Strangers, sometimes. Raira academy alumni, sometimes. Otherwise, just random clients here and there."

Shizuo scowled. "So...this happens a lot?" It wasn't jealousy that he felt, not exactly. More like...angry disbelief. He had been obsessively chasing the guy since they had been high school classmates, how did he never notice...?

Izaya shrugged. "No more than you'd expect," he replied lightly. "I don't discourage them when they pay attention to me, but very few of them have the guts to give me anything in person. For the most part, they just don't have the self-esteem for it." He mimicked the voice of a teenage girl. "I'm so ugly, I'm so fat, I'm so stupid, he'd never pay attention to someone like me, why would he? I wouldn't deserve him anyways."

Shizuo stared at him, at a loss for words. "Seriously?" he finally managed. "They think  _they're_  not good enough for  _you_?"

Izaya actually smiled, an odd expression for his face. "Humans," he said simply. "Aren't you glad you know better than that, Shizu-chan?"

"Somebody has to," he muttered.

Izaya laughed. "But! For what it's worth, they're completely right! I'd never pay attention to any of  _them_." He prodded Shizuo on the collarbone with a secret little smirk.

Shizuo seriously didn't know what to say to that, especially since Izaya was practically straddling him on the bed, apparently to keep him from lying back down.

Luckily, Izaya didn't seem to expect a reply. "Okaaay, enough chit-chat! I wanna open this." He flipped it over and started picking at the tape that held the wrapping paper together.

Shizuo snorted. "Give me that."

A sharp glare. "No. You'd ruin it. I want to tape it up again after I'm done, so that I can send it back."

He stared blankly. "And...why the hell would you do that?"

"To send a message," Izaya said mildy, "that if they really want to give me a gift, I'd prefer something useful. Like a new switchblade. Or a new cellphone. Or blackmail on somebody I've been itching to discipline."

Shizuo couldn't really tell at this point if Izaya was actually serious about the blackmail thing, but he had long since realized that Izaya drew a very firm line between his personal life and his professional life - and Shizuo had absolutely no place in the latter.

The fact that he had (sort of) come to terms with who Izaya  _was_  didn't mean that he was comfortable with what Izaya  _did_ , though. "I don't care how useful it is," he muttered. "Blackmailing is just...wrong."

"Not really," Izaya said, absently. Most of his concentration was on picking away the tape. "If people didn't do things to be ashamed of, then there'd be no such thing as blackmail. You can't blackmail an honest person."

"It's not about being  _honest_ ," he muttered, feeling just a touch bitter. What he wouldn't give to be able to erase some of the shit he had done as a kid...as a teenager...maybe even as an adult. "Just - people make mistakes. Let 'em be." _  
_

"No can do," Izaya said, with a strange little half-smile on his face. "Really. No can do. Do you realize how much harder my job would be if I had all of your morals? My oh my, it would be  _so_  hard."

Shizuo gritted his teeth at the mocking tone.

"Relax, Shizu-chan," the flea prodded his chest insistently, "I'm kidding. With the kind of people I have for clients, not even your morals would apply."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," he muttered, scowling. "Just so you know."

"But you see, Shizu-chan, there's nothing I could say to make you feel better." Izaya started fiddling with the tape again. "Unless you're giving me permission to lie to you...?"

He narrowed his eyes. "No," he replied flatly.

"Well, there you go, then - aha!" He peeled off the wrapping paper successfully and held up a cardboard box. He lifted the top and grinned effervescently. "Awwww, somebody did their research," he practically cooed.

"Ha?" Shizuo narrowed his eyes and grabbed the box, turning it over so that he could see the...book. Seriously? Izaya was cooing over a  _book_? He puzzled over the title - it was in English, and he had never been good with languages - until Izaya snatched it right back.

"My book! You're going to tear it," he hugged it to his chest almost protectively.

Shizuo hadn't even considered ripping the stupid thing to pieces, but he certainly did now. "Alright. You saw it. Aren't you going to send it back now?"

"Postal service is closed, anyways," Izaya shrugged. "Might as well read it." He pulled the book out and ran his hand down the cover. It looked like leather. Must have been expensive. "Actually, never mind. I'm going to keep it!"

Shizuo scowled. Izaya's exaggerated glee over the stupid book was starting to grate on him. "What kind of book is that, anyways?"

"Do you know Percy Bysshe Shelley?" The foreign consonants rolled off Izaya's tongue naturally.

Shizuo stared at him blankly.

"Of course you don't," Izaya sighed, with a look of annoyance. "Uncultured brute."

He glared. "Well, fine, you tell me. Who is he?"

"One of the best English poets of the Romantic period." Izaya had adopted a patiently exasperated tone.

"...You read Western poetry?" he asked disbelievingly.

Izaya rolled his eyes skyward. "Your cultural literacy is...I swear, it's practically negative. Yes, I read Western poetry. It'd be a damn shame not to know about  _half the world's literature_. I bet you don't even know anything about Eastern poetry, do you?"

Shizuo would have hit the bastard for that comment, even though it wasn't exactly wrong, but a more pressing issue occurred to him. "Wait. Is he...I don't know, is he one of your favorite writers or something?"

"Or something," Izaya said agreeably.

"How many people  _know_  that?" he asked, feeling suddenly bothered that he had been completely ignorant of this side to Izaya. And then he got annoyed at himself for even feeling that way, and it was like a vicious cycle of self-fury.

"Oh, not many." Izaya tilted his head thoughtfully. "In fact, I'm a little impressed. It would've taken some looking to find out about my illicit love for English poetry."

An itchy sort of anger burned in his chest. "So who was it?"

"Who was what? You have got to stop being so vague, Shizu-chan."

"Who sent you the book?"

"Oh, I dunno!" Izaya grinned at him. "Secret admirer, remember?"

"Bullshit. You're a fucking informant.  _Who, Izaya?"_

Izaya sighed. "Shizu-chan, honestly, why would I tell you? You'd pummel his face in, and that's a big no-no if I want to get more free gifts." He held it up to the light admiringly.

Shizuo glared at the stupid shiny thing with an expression of utter loathing. The worst part was that Izaya was right - he really  _did_  want to beat up whoever it was. Izaya was - not  _his_ , but at the very least he wasn't anybody else's.

Izaya patted his arm and gave him a cool smile that revealed nothing. "Don't worry, Shizu-chan. I'll make sure that he knows how close he came to dying by your hands."

He wasn't sure whether to be...touched by what was obviously meant to be a soothing gesture, or furious that Izaya was being so flippant about the whole thing. "Send it back," he said flatly.

The smile tightened. "No," Izaya said. "Do you  _see_  this book?"

Yes, he saw the book.

"Do you see how beautiful it is?"

No, he didn't see that.

Izaya sighed at the growing look of darkness on Shizuo's face. "You are utterly hopeless." He flipped the book open and seemed perfectly willing to let the conversation end there.

Shizuo was seriously tempted to yell at him and throw the book at the wall or something. Finally, he settled for pushing Izaya onto the other side of the bed and muttering, "If it's that good, read it to me."

"You wouldn't understand it," Izaya told him dismissively.

He glared at the stupid flea. "Then explain it."

The slender body occupying half of his bed straightened out. "Hmm. A challenge, to be sure." Before Shizuo could get angry at the implied insult, Izaya nodded shortly. "Okay. Let's see...we could begin with Ozymandias."

"With...what?"

"Ozy...man...dias. "

"Oh. Okay," Shizuo replied, not the least bit enlightened. He squinted at the page. He could distinguish the big O in the title, but the rest was in an odd script font that he found impossible to decipher. The paper was yellow-ish and looked more like cloth than anything else. It would probably tear like a spiderweb under his fingers. He was tempted to try.

As if he was completely ignorant of the direction Shizuo's thoughts were headed - which was highly unlikely - Izaya cleared his throat and began to read. " _I met a traveller from an antique land..._ "

Shizuo wasn't expecting the sudden flood of English, but he quickly settled back, just listening to the rhythmic flow of Izaya's voice. Not for the first time, he realized that Izaya sounded much different in English - sharper somehow, more masculine. It wasn't better or worse, just different.

"... _who said,_ _two vast and trunkless legs of stone_  s _tand in the_   _desert_." Izaya had half-closed his eyes. He was practically reciting from memory. " _Near them, on the sand..._ _Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown_  a _nd wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command_   _tell that its sculptor well those passions read,_   _which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things._ " He touched the edge of the book and looked at Shizuo to make sure he was paying attention before continuing, " _The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed - a_ _nd on the pedestal these words appear..._ _"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:_ _Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"_ _Nothing beside remains._ "

There was such a long pause that Shizuo wondered if that was the end of it, but then Izaya kept going. Softer now. More thoughtful. Shizuo had the sudden, intense wish that he did understand English.

" _Round the decay o_ _f that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,_ " Izaya had lowered his voice to a gentle murmur, " _the lone and level sands stretch far away._ " Then he slipped back into the easy vowels of Japanese to say, "Hmm...I think I'll paraphrase for you."

Shizuo was relieved. "Yeah?"

"A traveler is telling you about the things he has seen. He talks about passing two enormous stone ruins in the desert that are fashioned into legs...but the rest of the body is missing." His finger moved down the page serenely. His voice was soft, oddly poetic. "Nearby, you find the ruined statue's head. Its face is twisted into a cold sneer. The expression is so lifelike that it's obvious how often the sculptor had to experience it." He paused and frowned. "Can I do that again? I think I dumbed it down too much. It doesn't sound right."

Shizuo scowled. "Then stop dumbing it down."

Izaya gave him a look. His silence was probably more meaningful than anything he could have said.

He scowled even more.

With a slight grin, Izaya began again. "Okay. Back to the poem. We were at the part about the sculptor...The traveler reads the inscription on the pedestal:  _My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, and know the meaning of despair_. But if you were to look at the desert, you'd see nothing there...nothing but wind-swept sand."

They were silent for a moment. Then Shizuo said, quietly, "What's the point of that, then?"

Izaya glared at him. "Uncultured brute! Seriously!" he huffed.

Shizuo scowled. "But what  _is_  the point? I mean, obviously nothing's left...so? What then?"

"That's the end of the poem," Izaya said, looking affronted. He resembled a peacock fluffing up his feathers indignantly.

"No, I mean - why did the king put that on his statue?"

Izaya sighed. "It's...a comment on humanity. No matter how proud you are of what you've done, it won't last forever. Think about your brother, for instance."

Shizuo narrowed his eyes. "What about him?"

"He's famous right now, no? But after a couple hundred years, how many people are going to remember him?"

"...not a lot, I guess," he admitted, faintly disgruntled about the specific example Izaya had chosen. "Unless you really like movies."

"Shizu-chan, in a few centuries, people probably won't even watch movies anymore," Izaya said patiently. "DVD players would be in museums _._ For that matter, I don't know if  _museums_  would still exist."

Shizuo furrowed his forehead.

"I know that's tough for a protozoan brain to take in, though," Izaya added.

"Shut the fuck up," he said. Any other time he would have beaten the crap out of Izaya for a comment like that, but the mood was...off. Stupid poem.

"The point is," Izaya said, "humanity is so stuck in the present that it can't tell how insignificant its accomplishments - or its failures - will be in the future."

"...wait, so why the hell do you like this poem?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Doesn't it kind of insult you? In a couple hundred years, nobody's gonna remember  _you_ , either."

The silence was so total and complete that it finally occurred to Shizuo that maybe, just maybe, Izaya might not like the way he phrased that.

"Uh - "

"Shizu-chan," Izaya clapped the book closed and made to get up, "sometimes I really wonder about you." His tone was icy.

"Flea," he said, not sure what the hell he was supposed to do now. Should he...apologize? What would he even be apologizing  _for_?

"Clearly I am wasting valuable time on you, when I could be doing much better things with much better people."

Okay,  _that_  was pretty fucking insulting, because he and Izaya might beat each other half to death but it was  _never_  a waste of anybody's time. "Hey, flea - " Shizuo was half scrambling out of the bed now. Izaya just happened to be much faster, though - and he was out of the room with barely a sound.

The clock on the wall was incredibly loud, all of a sudden. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

"...Well, fuck."


	2. ...and despair

They had fights all the time.

That much, at least, was normal, and it had been normal for so long that Shizuo had almost forgotten what his life had been like pre-Izaya. Even after Shinra had managed to maneuver them into a half-working relationship, Izaya couldn't seem to stop himself from baiting Shizuo, and Shizuo couldn't seem to stop himself from smashing that bait with both hands and whatever instrument of destruction was closest. And every time, after Izaya decided that a sufficient amount of blood (and dignity) had been shed from Shizuo's hide, the lines were drawn up again like they'd never been blurred in the first place.

It wasn't like that this time. There was nothing in the aftermath of their fight but silence, silence, and more silence.

Shizuo hadn't smelled Izaya on the horizon for days, which left him at something of a loss. He knew damn well that Izaya was waiting for something from him. He just had no fucking clue what, and he hated not knowing. Cigarettes slipped through his fingers at a mad pace, and by the third day, even the most dull-headed of debtors had learned to brace themselves instead of running their mouths or just running in general. Three weeks managed to pass like this before his friends realized that something was actually wrong with him and Izaya - well, even more wrong than usual, anyways.

And thus it was that Shinra decided that his entirely-unasked-for help was needed again.

Which was why Shizuo woke up one day to an enthusiastic shriek of "SHIZUO-KUN! The doctor has come to fix all your problems!" accompanied by pulses of doorbell ringing.

Really, Shinra should not have been surprised that Shizuo punched him after opening the door.

As Shinra scrounged for a pack of ice for his head, complaining the whole while, Shizuo went back to his bedroom and sat on the mattress, rubbing his temples and wondering why the hell they were still friends.

Shinra wandered in a minute later, a newly acquired wet rag on his forehead, smiling like he had a secret. "So," he said, without preamble. "What did you fight with Izaya about?"

Shizuo jerked his head up and growled, because seriously, fuck Shinra and fuck his stupid interventions and fuck the weird consequences of his stupid interventions and actually fuck everything -

Shinra barreled right over his rage-induced rant before it could even begin. "He hasn't come to see me either, Shizuo-kun."

Shizuo gaped at him - and just like that, the constant fury that had fueled him for the past three weeks deflated like an overstretched balloon. Not in an explosion, either, just a sad, pathetic flattening that left him kind of dizzy.

Shinra prodded at him. "Well?"

"I DIDN'T," he said, not shouting it, just stating it very, very loudly. "Fuck's sake. It was a stupid poem. About this king-guy. No, not a guy, I mean, it was a statue."

Shinra stared at him blankly. "I'm afraid you've lost me, Shizuo-kun."

"Join the fucking club, I've been lost for three weeks."

Gingerly, Shinra settled onto the covers next to Shizuo. "Why don't you start at the beginning," he suggested pleasantly.

"In the beginning, it was all your fault," Shizuo started.

Shinra waved him off. "I already knew that part, Shizuo-kun. Start at the part I don't know."

Shizuo growled at him.

Shinra smiled at him peaceably and made a 'go on' gesture.

With a low, grumbling sigh, he said, "Izaya got this book, okay."

"Uh huh?"

"And it was a book of English poetry."

"Uh huh."

"And - fuck if I know what happened after that. We started talking about this poem or something - "

Shinra promptly burst out in hysterical laughter.

Shizuo snarled, "What?"

"I'm sorry," Shinra gasped, "did you say that you two were talking about poetry?"

"...yeah?"

"Forgive me, Shizuo-kun, but you are the last person I'd expect to have opinions on literature outside of, 'This is too confusing, explain it to me.'"

Shizuo felt his cheeks glow from some sense of... well, of embarrassment, if he were being honest.

That set Shinra off again. "Oh, Shizuo-kun," he said, crying a bit now, "that's exactly what happened, isn't it?"

"Shut up."

"And then what, Izaya called you an idiot and left?"

"No," he said, practically growling out the word. "...I mean, yeah, at the end, but not until the end."

It took a few minutes for Shinra to calm down enough to make intelligible noises with his mouth. "Sometimes I wish I were a fly so that I could be on your wall," he said, still giggling and wiping away tears of mirth. "Poor Izaya."

At that, Shizuo turned to him disbelievingly and repeated, "Poor _Izaya_?"

"Poor Izaya," Shinra confirmed. "Have you gone to apologize to him yet?"

"Apologize for _what_ ," he said, half irritated, half mind-boggled.

"Sometimes you just have to apologize," Shinra said sagely.

"But for WHAT," he repeated, now fully irritated.

Shinra beamed at him. With the air of someone who was dispensing priceless wisdom, he said, "I don't know. But it sounds like a good idea, doesn't it?"

* * *

The trouble was, it did sound like a good idea. Shizuo still had no clue what had set Izaya off, but there was no question that it was kinda, sorta his fault that Izaya was apparently avoiding Ikebukuro.

So, yeah, he was going to apologize, if he could actually find the guy he wanted to apologize to. That turned out to be a big 'if.'

It did not help that Izaya no longer worked in Ikebukuro. It especially did not help that Izaya hadn't been in Ikebukuro at all for the past three weeks, if the recent lack of him in Shinra's life was anything to go by. In fact, after ripping up half the city in search of his missing sorta-significant other, Shizuo took a lunch break - and that was how he learned that Izaya had even been avoiding Russia Sushi, which immediately vaulted to #1 on Shizuo's list of Reasons This Fight Is Different And Kinda Worrying.

Shizuo then went on to rip up the other half of the city, which of course did nothing for his quest to find Izaya, but it sure did a lot to the structural integrity of the otherwise lovely city of Ikebukuro.

But forget all that, because after a full day of searching, Shizuo dragged his feet back to his apartment and found Izaya on the fucking rooftop, looking down at him.

Shizuo was so tired that it actually took a while for him to understand what he was looking at. It took even longer for him to realize that he had reflexively grabbed a trashcan and tossed it at the roof, because he was just _that_ pissed.

Izaya blinked out of sight just before impact, unfortunately, so for the space of a couple seconds all Shizuo heard was the echo of a trashcan crumpling. And then Izaya popped back over the edge of the rooftop, calling out, "That wasn't very nice, Shizu-chan!"

"Where the fuck have you BEEN," Shizuo yelled back at him.

"Only you would ask why I haven't been around, after you just threw a trashcan at me," Izaya said, tucking his feet between the bars of the railing.

...he had a point there. Whatever - Shizuo wasn't in the mood to apologize anymore, so fuck him. "I'm going to my apartment," he yelled.

"Well, then, I'm leaving."

Shizuo paused.

Izaya waited.

"Fuckin' flea," Shizuo muttered, but he went to the elevator and pushed the button for the top floor.

When he propped open the door to the rooftop, Izaya was still waiting for him, sitting on the fence in the same position. Honestly, that surprised Shizuo - he'd been expecting Izaya to vanish again, just to piss him off. But Izaya hadn't, and Shizuo had found him now, which mean that he should probably apologize, right?

But before Shizuo could argue himself into or out of apologizing, Izaya tossed a book over his shoulder. At Shizuo.

It would've landed on Shizuo's head, but he grabbed it just in time. "Furankenshutain," he read off the cover. "Furankenshutain? What the hell is that?"

"I knew it, your cultural literacy is absolutely negative," Izaya said, with a long, drawn out sigh. "Furankenshutain - or, as the English would say it, Frankenstein - is a classic piece of English literature. It's so classic that there was even a kaiju movie with Frankenstein monsters in the 60's."

"Uh," Shizuo said, still staring at the book.

"I figured it'd be a good way to start your education."

"Uh," Shizuo said again, "don't you want me to, to apologize or something?"

Izaya sniffed. "You can't apologize for being what you are."

"Oh." He looked at the book again, even more confused now.

"Especially if what you are is an idiot."

" _Oi_ \- "

"However, idiocy isn't necessarily incurable, so... I'm assigning you homework. You should read that book, and get back to me."

"What the hell? Why?"

"I told you, for your education." Izaya had turned around by now, and he was doing a great imitation of a bored teenager. "If you'd like, I can give you a summary so you don't get confused."

Shizuo gritted his teeth. "I can read, asshole."

"Shizu-chan," Izaya said, rolling his eyes hard, "it's not about reading, it's about understanding."

Shizuo glared at him and really had to restrain himself from throwing the book at Izaya. "Okay, if you're going to explain anything, explain this. Why. The. Fuck. Were. You. Mad. At. Me?"

"That's the wrong question to be asking. It implies that I was actually mad." Izaya's lips were quirked up into a sardonic smile.

"Fuck's sake," Shizuo said, rapidly losing patience, "why'd you avoid me for three weeks, then?"

"How about," Izaya tilted his head, "you let me tell you about your homework first. And then I'll tell you why I haven't been around."

Shizuo glared at him but said begrudgingly, "Fine," because that vague sense of sorriness that had been following him around for three weeks finally decided to show up again.

"So," Izaya said, with a little flourish, "this book. Frankenstein. Written by the lovely lady who Percy Shelley married, which is most appropriate, don't you think?"

"Sure," Shizuo said, slowly regaining his ability to process words like a normal, non-enraged human being.

Izaya gave him an over-indulgent smile that would've earned him a stop sign to the face on any other day. "The basic premise is this - there's a man named Dr. Frankenstein. He stitches together a bunch of corpses and reanimates them - makes himself a pet monster, so to speak."

Shizuo gaped at him. "The fuck. Why?"

"Who knows? Anyways, after some people die - "

"Hold up, you can't just say, _'after some people die,'_   how the hell did they die - "

"Shizu-chan, just stand there and listen like a good boy." Izaya wagged his finger at him.

Shizuo picked up the fallen trash can and managed to take out a chunk of the fence. Not a single piece of Izaya accompanied it, unfortunately.

Izaya, out of necessity, had moved to a different section of the fence, but he hadn't stopped talking. "Like I was saying, some people die, and eventually Dr. Frankenstein is reunited with the monster, who says that he just wants a girlfriend."

"What," Shizuo said. It felt like he'd been saying that a lot today.

Izaya ignored him. "And the good doctor says, _sure, I'll make you one,_ and he does. Except then he gets second thoughts, so he destroys the girl monster. The first monster gets angry and swears to have his revenge. A few more people die. And, eventually, so does Dr. Frankenstein."

"This is one messed up story." Shizuo looked at the innocuous volume in his hand with a sort of stunned horror.

"The Romantics had some odd ideas." Izaya shrugged. "What's really peculiar is that people nowadays think 'Frankenstein' refers to the monster, when it's actually the doctor's name. But, then again... in the context of the story, you could argue that Frankenstein _is_ the real monster." He eyed Shizuo. "That's not really relevant to the argument I'm trying to make, but it's interesting to think about, isn't it?" He pressed his index finger to his lower lip. "Who's worse, the man who kills innocent people for revenge, or the man who allows it to happen?"

Shizuo opened his mouth... and then closed it again.

Izaya eyed him with interest. "Well? I thought you of all people would have some opinions on that." He sounded disappointed.

"The hell do you want me to say?"

"I'll take anything that shows you have an actual brain in there." Izaya sighed with obvious grumpiness. "Alright. Let's do this step by step, shall we? The good doctor - Dr. Frankenstein, I mean - didn't exactly create his monster out of benevolence." Izaya paused. "But...he didn't mean to set off the chain of events that led to people dying, either. And the monster didn't search for Dr. Frankenstein just to ruin his life. But the doctor still brought the monster to life, and that monster still killed all those people, and both of them did it just because they _could._ "

Shizuo blinked at him. "Okay." It was odd - he understood all the words coming out of Izaya's mouth, but he didn't see the point to them.

"You could - if you had a certain amount of insight," Izaya looked at him pointedly, "relate this story to our lives."

"So wait," Shizuo said, ejecting the words from his mouth slowly to make sure they came out right. "Are _you_ the monster in this scenario, or am I?"

"They're both monsters," Izaya said, "what difference does it make?"

"Only one of them killed somebody."

Izaya sighed. "If you tortured a wild animal, and the wild animal kills somebody later, but you know that the animal was perfectly docile before you tortured it... is the animal really at fault?"

"I guess not," Shizuo said reluctantly. "But people aren't wild animals. They've got, they've, you know, they can choose whether or not to do the wrong thing."

Izaya looked at him. "So everything you've done in your life was a deliberate choice? You were in control every second?"

Shizuo flinched.

Izaya nodded. "I thought so. You should read the actual book sometime. It'd be...illuminating, for someone like you."

"Someone like me," Shizuo repeated skeptically. "Because I'm a monster, or because I'm...dating...a monster?" He stumbled over the word _dating_. He couldn't help it. It was such a stupid word. Dating. As if he and Izaya could pick a few days to orbit around each other, and the rest of the time they went and did their own thing. That wasn't how it worked, not for them.

Izaya cracked up, bursts of laughter shaking out of his body. "Oh, Shizu-chan. You can't have one without the other, can you?"

Shizuo gritted his teeth and said tightly, " _You_ could. Maybe I couldn't. But you - you could probably find a normal person to be with."

Izaya sighed. "Yes, but not the way you're picturing it. I'm not that good at pretending, Shizu-chan." He didn't say it with reluctance, or anger, or frustration. He just said it, and it was done, and he was moving on.

"You're better than me," Shizuo pointed out.

"Who isn't?" Izaya pivoted on the rail once, twice. "But it's true that the metaphor isn't perfect. I've made a few monsters, but you weren't one of them."

"I was just born one, I guess," Shizuo said, aiming for flatness but landing closer to bitterness.

"Yes, you were," Izaya said, very deliberately choosing not to soften the blow.

"Fuck you," Shizuo said, but the words turned hollow in his throat.

"Don't worry, Shizu-chan. You might've been born a monster, but so is everybody else."

"Not everybody's a monster."

"Not everybody's a monster to _you_ ," Izaya corrected. "You're a fool if you don't realize that some - maybe even most - people are afraid to be cruel to you."

That shut Shizuo up pretty effectively. Slowly, he closed his eyes and breathed in, out, in, out.

Izaya didn't say anything else for a while.

Shizuo was the one to break the silence, with an uneven little mutter of, "Yeah."

"Shizu-chan," and suddenly Izaya was in his space, stepping into the curve of Shizuo's body like he was pulling a coat on, "Shizu-chan, you know, three weeks ago... I was trying to be _nice_."

Blink. Blink. Blink. "Nice," he repeated.

Izaya made an emphatic gesture with his hand. "Yes, Shizu-chan. Of all of Percy Shelley's works, I chose to read you Ozymandias because I thought you would like it."

"But why," Shizuo asked, still more or less confused as fuck.

"Oh, I don't know, Shizu-chan," Izaya's voice took on a mocking undertone. "Maybe because Ozymandias probably killed thousands of people but nobody remembers any of it?"

Shizuo squinted at him. "And you thought I'd like that," he said skeptically.

Izaya sighed at him. "I thought you'd like the idea that nobody will remember _you_ , either."

"Oh," Shizuo said, a little stunned.

"It doesn't even matter if you level whole cities, Shizu-chan, you'll be gone and forgotten faster than you think. That was the point I was trying to make. But, obviously, it flew right over your brainless head." Izaya blew out an exasperated breath and gestured towards the book. "So, I'm educating you. Just for the slightest chance that, in the future, you might actually understand and appreciate all the nice things I do for you. See?"

"Oh," Shizuo repeated, because he honestly had nothing worth saying compared to the bomb Izaya had just dropped on him.

"But there's a second reason I want to talk to you about Frankenstein, and I don't think you've figured it out yet," Izaya said cryptically, which changed the statement from something that was true to something that was true _and_ pissed Shizuo off.

"Well, maybe you should _tell me_ if it's so important, smart-ass."

"As you wish," Izaya said, with great dignity that he probably didn't deserve. "The moral of the story is: things happen. And these things happen because you choose to do them. And sometimes you choose to do them just because you can." He pulled the book out of Shizuo's hands and dropped it towards the street below. A gust of wind hit it at the last second, and the updraft tossed it against the building. "For the sake of the story, if nothing else."

"I'm not seeing your point," Shizuo said, staring confusedly at the path the book had taken through the air. How the hell did Izaya expect him to read it now? Not that he'd been planning to read it, actually, but...

"Shizu-chan, Shizu-chan, Shizu-chan. Don't you think, perhaps, that me avoiding you for three weeks was a bit of an overreaction? And do I seem the type to overreact?" Izaya prodded his chest. "Do I even look angry to you?" He grinned, leaned in close to Shizuo's ear, and repeated meaningfully, "Sometimes you do things _just because you can._ "

On Shizuo's end, there was a long silence as the missing gear finally materialized in his brain. His thoughts started spinning, linking Izaya's words like a nonsensical constellation. In stark realization, Shizuo said, "So, these three weeks... you were just fucking with me."

The wind died down, leaving the air dramatically still. Slowly, very slowly, Izaya gazed up at him, wearing a shit-eating grin of galactic proportions on his face. "Oh, Shizu-chan," he drawled, "it really took you _far_ too long to figure that out."

Shizuo looked at him. Izaya looked back.

Then, moved by what he would later claim was only the slightest twinge of relief, Shizuo put one hand on the Izaya's back...and threw him clear off the roof, and down, down, down. Laughter echoed from below as Shizuo slammed the rooftop door behind him, cursing Izaya's existence with every shred of his being. 

The book, as it turned out, was on his balcony when he stormed back to his apartment - because of course, _of course_ it was.

After a moment of thought, he picked it up. Dusted it off. Unbent the corners.

After another moment of thought, he flipped the first page. Then another. Then another.

Then he picked up his cellphone and picked a certain number on his speed dial. "Your stupid book is BLANK."

"You actually tried to read it?" Izaya crowed gleefully in reply. "My oh my, you really _do_ love me, don't you, baby?"

"Shut the hell up," Shizuo said.

"Am I wrong?" Izaya asked, giggling like the madman that he was.

"Just shut up," Shizuo said, and that was really all he could say about the matter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, Shizuo. The score is basically 3-1 in Izaya's favor, and I don't think Izaya's losing his advantage anytime soon. 
> 
> Thus concludes this two-shot! Sorry it took so long to post this half, but I hope you enjoyed it :) I might have a few more stories in this timeline, but don't hold your breath.


End file.
